She Lay of the Band 
silo, eats all his winter hay in the summer while it is 
green, turns it at once into a surplus of himself, then 
buries that self, feeds upon it, and sleeps— and 
lives! 
The north wind doth blow, 
And we shall have snow, 
but what good reason is there for our being daunted 
at the prospect? Robin and all the others are well 
prepared. Even the wingless frog, who is also lack- 
ing in fur and feathers and fat, even he has no care 
at the sound of the cold winds. Nature provides for 
him too, in her way, which is neither the way for the 
robin, the muskrat, nor the woodchuck. He survives, 
and all he has to do about it is to dig into the mud 
at the bottom of the ditch. This looks at first like 
the journey Woodchuck takes. But it is really a 
longer, stranger journey than Woodchuck’s, for it 
takes the frog far beyond the realms of mere sleep, 
on into the cold, black land where no one can tell 
the quick from the dead. 
The frost may or may not reach him here in the 
ooze. No matter. If the cold works down and freezes 
him into the mud, he never knows. But he will 
thaw out as good as new; he will sing again for joy 
14 
